70-year-old biking the hemisphere
In a quest to sip champage on the Arctic coast, Stanley Brodaric has pedaled his mountain bike 15,000 miles in 17 months. He left Tierra Del Fuego in February, and is nearing the end, but his goal may remain unattainable.

BP has not yet granted Brodaric the access he needs to finish the final eight miles to the Arctic Ocean at the end of the Dalton Highway and Prudhoe Bay oil fields.

Brodaric, who turned 70 last week, was born in Slovenia and currently lives in New York City. He chose his starting point because "it's the southernmost road there is," he said. "There is no more road."

He has pedaled past armed guerrillas in Colombia, suffered the heat of Bolivia and been robbed and almost choked to death by thieves in Peru.

Through it all, he has pedaled as much as 100 miles a day.

While BP has accommodated requests like Brodaric's in the past, the company changed its policy because of heightened security following Sept. 11.